A Villain's Fate
by newtypeshadow
Summary: Draco knows what happens to villains in the end. And for him, at least, the inevitable has arrived.


Title: Villain's Fate  
Author: newtypeshadow

* * *

He was awake.

He wished he were still asleep.

The dark-robed figures were trickling into his dormitory, sweeping along the sides and ringing the students in like water flowing into a moat. A moat filled with deadly, nasty things. Their wands gleamed in the lamplight Draco wondered if his father was among them, wondered if the man would really kill him. His father had always stressed the importance of family loyalty, of the family Name, but he had never openly spoken of Voldemort until Draco's fifth year. Even then, he'd never given Draco ultimatums-join Voldemort or die, or be disowned, or simply know you've disappointed me. Nevertheless, the trembling Slytherin knew the threat of one or all three was implicit.

He'd grown up in the man's house, after all.

Suddenly, one of the third years screamed. Another student fell heavily into Draco's side: passed out. Draco stepped forward; she hit the carpet with an amusing thump. It was only amusing for a second, because then children were swarming round him in a panic, shouting and screaming, tears in their panicked eyes. Draco just froze, eye of a cyclone.

Voldemort had slither-stepped into the entryway, silent but for his hissing breath. Those blood red eyes were trained straight on Draco.

Like a baby mouse hypnotised by a snake, Draco thought wildly. He'd dangled the pink hairless things over garden snakes when he was young, enthralled as the snake cornered the blind little rodents and opened wide, swallowing them whole over a period of struggling minutes.

He didn't think he could ever do it again. Even if he wanted to.

"So _you_ are the foolish children who refused my gift" Voldemort said. His voice was loud and thin, breathy to the ear, almost painful to hear. The Dark Lord didn't sound at all put off by their refusal. He sounded...eager.

Draco was very familiar with this type of eagerness.

Being its chosen victim, when Voldemort was the aggressor, was a fate worse than totally fucked.

And with his father looking on...

The Dark Lord ordered his followers to unmask, and all around him Draco saw people from his parents' circles, students from other houses, and even some friends of his. People he knew couldn't make it alone in the world and people who were wasting their futures bowing to a madman. People too cowardly to say no.

People like him, incidentally, though Draco had a feeling his cowardice was passive-aggressive in this case; he'd simply not shown up at the Marking Ceremony. No reply to the owl, no announced intentions either way. No huddling behind Dumbledore's robes or hiding behind is father's influence. Draco had ignored it all, but it hadn't gone away.

Now it seemed he, and the rest of Slytherin ("unfaithful" they were being called), was going to die.

His father's face was pale and impassive as marble. A jagged scar connected his right temple to his cheekbone; the curse had only just missed his eye. The cold man terrified his son, standing there, straight-backed, wand at the ready. Draco had never felt particularly close to his father, though he'd certainly striven for his approval when his own faults didn't trip him up. He knew his father had done the best he knew how, tried to give him everything he needed to succeed, be the best. And he'd known for years that his father was only capable of caring about him to a point. It seemed that point was the glowing tip of the Dark Lord's wand.

A whisper and the students were suddenly bound together; _petrificus totalus_ and they couldn't move. The underlying din of sobbing and screaming was abruptly cut off.

Alone in his head, Draco prayed for a savior, a rescue; A daft Dumbledore or even a bloody blundering Potter. Alone in his head, Draco willed his dad to fight for him, to step forward from Voldemort's right side and block that cursed wand's path. Alone in his head, Draco hoped he, like Potter, might be impervious to Voldemort's curse. That he alone might survive, and be heralded a wonder, made legend by his fantastic feat of living.

Alone in his head, Draco knew no one would come for them; that he would die in pain. He was a Slytherin, after all. Slytherins helped themselves because no one else would—people try to hold Slytherins back, in fact. Alone in his head, Draco Malfoy knew that as Harry Potter's self-appointed rival, he couldn't be successful in anything. Potter was a hero, which made Draco a villain, and everyone knows the villain always dies or lives in shame.

And in the end, nobody cares. Secretly, they're glad.


End file.
